goldstone stringer help

[firegrl]

Hi

I have been asked to make a pile (100) beads. They are to be purple with a certian gold design (fret). I am tired of trying to reinvent the wheel. Basically when I apply the gold stone on the purple it gets lost. So then I tried to make a goldstone stringer with a white core. Did not work, too much white showing so then I try agian and make sure there is no white showing before I pull, still not good enough. I tried doing stringer via Kimberly's method better but just not enough gold. Oh yes I am encaseing in clear.

So the actual question is this has anyone successfully made a darker rich purple bead with gold accents and what is the secert. Or if you have a gold stone advice or tutorial that would be apprieciated as well.

Thanks Cathy

[Cosmo]

Are you using the pre-made goldstone rods/stringers? If so, they are about 95% clear with a little bit of goldstone thrown in. They don't show up well on most colors. They aren't true goldstone.

If you are pulling your own stringers from goldstone chunks, it could be that you are pulling them too thin, or getting them too hot and burning them up.

[kimberly]

How thin are you encasing your goldstone??? I heat up a good sized chunk, encase it NO MORE than 1/16 inch thick (way less if I can manage it), then pull it out. The resulting stringer has a VERY thin encasement of clear and the goldstone is very sparkly. I use a clear stringer to encase it. I do not wrap the stringer on, but heat up a tiny glob on the stringer, push it onto the goldstone, another tiny glob, push it on, and so forth, until the entire glob of goldstone is thinly encased.

[firegrl]

Thanks both of you

I have tried manufatured stringer lol some times there as gold and sometimes not.
I have tried melting white and then pick up gold stone frit and them ecase in clear. In this case too much of the white showed through even when I though I had very carefully covered all of the white.

I will try melting a chuck and then encasing with a clear string and see if the shows better on the purple (THANKS KIMBERLY)and I will try not to pull them too thin (THANKS COSMO).

I will let you know how it goes.

You are the BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Smiles
Cathy

[kimberly]

Cathy, I was assuming youmwere already encasing a goldstone chunck or I would have bee more specific. I am sorry!! There are many ways to do this, but here is how I do it:

Preheat a good sized chunk of Goldstone in you kiln or on a hotplate (about the size of a hazelnut in the shell). While it is preheating, take a boro punty and flatten one end. Place a glob of clear on the end of the punty and get it hot. Pick up the Goldstone with the hot clear. Take the Goldstone to the flame and heat it gently while shaping it with mashers. I try to get it into a rough cylinder. Do not heat it too much or you will burn out the copper flakes. When you have a cylinder, THINLY encase it with clear or some other transparent (pink, amethyst, and black are all very pretty. If you use black, you must encase VERY THINLY). To encase thinly, do not wrap the cylinder with stringer. Instead heat up a small glob of clear on the end of a thickish stringer and push the hot glob down the length of the cylinder. Repeat this all the way around the cylinder until it is completely encased with a very thin layer of clear. Then heat up your cylinder until it is hot enough to pull out into a nice, sturdy stringer. If done correctly, this will give you very dense, very sparkly Goldstone stringer. You should get several stringers from a chunk of Goldstone the size I described.

[firegrl]

Hi Kimberly

Thanks for the directions. Well making stringer from chucks made a world of difference. I started back at the torch after I read your first answer. I did it a little different. (well of course I did since I am a little different to begin with :biggrin: ) With my pliers I started to heat up my smallest piece (about the size of a walnut~ were you channalling) and at the sametime the end of my stringer making mandrel. When hot enough I stuck the two together. Melted abit and shaped in to a retangle box. Then followed your instrution not to encase to thickly. One thing it did do is after I placed down a strip of clear I heated the clear and pushed it flatter. Then I heated and pulled stringer with my pliers. WOW WOW AND WOW what a world of differnce. I then made 2 sample beads and played with my stringer. BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!***************

Thank you so much. I was absolutely beside myself trying to figure out what I did wrong and how to get it to work.

So Kimberly when you writting that book???? What book? the one you are going to retire on. Did I happen to say you are the best.

Smiles
Cathy

[kimberly]

Wow!!! That was fast!! I'm really glad it worked for you. Funny, I flatten the strip of clear sometimes, too, if it is too thick! Love to see some photos when you are done!!

[firegrl]

Thanks Kimberly

Sorry no pic as I do not have a digital camera or a scanner. :cry: Yet.

It did work great. It made it SSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOO much easier. :idea:

Cathy

[Sallysbeads]

I pull my own stringer but I leave it raised on the bead and then encase it. If I melt it in before encasing the sparkle tends to turn dark and get dull.

Great question. Answers have been helpful to me as well. Thanks :razz: